Beautiful scene, gorgeous light and colour, however the Swan is quite overexposed on one side. partly the light, and partly light reflected from the water. You can recover some detail with the highlight tool is CS, as Ive done in the mod.
Yoy can add canvas to place the Swan on a third, with just a few minutes work, extending canvas and filling with the background. This improves the composition even more.
Hope this is helpful,
regards
Willie

Beautiful scene, gorgeous light and colour, however the Swan is quite overexposed on one side. partly the light, and partly light reflected from the water. You can recover some detail with the highlight tool is CS, as Ive done in the mod.

Yoy can add canvas to place the Swan on a third, with just a few minutes work, extending canvas and filling with the background. This improves the composition even more.

Willie - cheers.
I think it is my laptop screen, doesn't look too over on this (still seeing definition in terms of shape to the highlight side). Teach me really - I should be working on photographs on the desktop, but just too lazy to turn it on tonight!
Nice work on the mod too, thanks!
I am just gutted that I lost the original RAW file in a massive hard disk failure at the start of the year as there was a lot more information in that file that I could have drawn on.

Willie - cheers.

I think it is my laptop screen, doesn't look too over on this (still seeing definition in terms of shape to the highlight side). Teach me really - I should be working on photographs on the desktop, but just too lazy to turn it on tonight!

Nice work on the mod too, thanks!

I am just gutted that I lost the original RAW file in a massive hard disk failure at the start of the year as there was a lot more information in that file that I could have drawn on.

Hi Rob,
Nice shot with the swan looking to one side as if facing the sun and feeling the warmth. Sometimes white feathers and bright sunlight do leave you much detail as you know but if your shooting in RAW, and your camera as the capability, you can gain a little back. I've opened you image into RAW and while holding down the "Alt" key click on the "recovery" slider, your image will turn black except for the area's that need attention these will be bright colours. Keeping the "Alt" button pressed adjust the slider until these areas have also turned black, of course you will never recover a full in the face sun, this also works on a similar basis with the black slider. If you have this option it is far better than using the "Shadow/Highlights.
Take care
Martin

Hi Rob,

Nice shot with the swan looking to one side as if facing the sun and feeling the warmth. Sometimes white feathers and bright sunlight do leave you much detail as you know but if your shooting in RAW, and your camera as the capability, you can gain a little back. I've opened you image into RAW and while holding down the "Alt" key click on the "recovery" slider, your image will turn black except for the area's that need attention these will be bright colours. Keeping the "Alt" button pressed adjust the slider until these areas have also turned black, of course you will never recover a full in the face sun, this also works on a similar basis with the black slider. If you have this option it is far better than using the "Shadow/Highlights.

I take swan pictures in RAW on my 7D and despite over exposing by 1 or 2 stops, always have difficulty getting detail in those oh so white feathers! The problem for me, even with LR4's new processing, is that getting the detail back means loosing punch in the rest of the shot as you have to push the recover highlights slider all the way over and often the whites and the highlights too. So I end up going into Photoshop and fiddling there. But it's a lot of effort!

I take swan pictures in RAW on my 7D and despite over exposing by 1 or 2 stops, always have difficulty getting detail in those oh so white feathers! The problem for me, even with LR4's new processing, is that getting the detail back means loosing punch in the rest of the shot as you have to push the recover highlights slider all the way over and often the whites and the highlights too. So I end up going into Photoshop and fiddling there. But it's a lot of effort!

Grandad - eggs, eh ;)
Lovely shot mate! interesting reading you going all Nikon! If my D3 is anything to go by the whole swan would be overexposed ;)
But that's prolly me, not the camera... having said that I'd expect the Active D-lighting to be really good on the 800, as there is a very noticeable capability jump between the D3 & D5k I've got. Shame it wasn't the other way round...
Cheers amigo!
Goggz

Grandad - eggs, eh

Lovely shot mate! interesting reading you going all Nikon! If my D3 is anything to go by the whole swan would be overexposed

But that's prolly me, not the camera... having said that I'd expect the Active D-lighting to be really good on the 800, as there is a very noticeable capability jump between the D3 & D5k I've got. Shame it wasn't the other way round...

Goggz, I didn't want to say mate ;-)
Been wanting to go Nikon for years so really looking forward to making the jump. Think it was your 14-24 that broke me completely, it was just a matter of waiting for the right camera to come along after seeing that beast!
Martin - you say opening and working on it in RAW, do you mean in Photoshop (ACR), Lightroom or something else. Sounds an interesting technique that is worthy of further investigation.
Cheers
Rob

Goggz, I didn't want to say mate

Been wanting to go Nikon for years so really looking forward to making the jump. Think it was your 14-24 that broke me completely, it was just a matter of waiting for the right camera to come along after seeing that beast!

Martin - you say opening and working on it in RAW, do you mean in Photoshop (ACR), Lightroom or something else. Sounds an interesting technique that is worthy of further investigation.